When Dr. Archie Morgan wasn’t pulling teeth, he was known to pull your leg while clowning around. Dr. Morgan, shown in the feature photo above, began his career in dentistry around 1948. Beginning in 1979, he launched his clown act. During the 1984 Strawberry Festival Parade, the children voted Morgan as one of the top five clowns in the Best Children’s category. The second contest that Morgan participated in as a clown was in the white face category at the Chattanooga Choo Choo Clown Festival, where he took the first-place award. Morgan’s rise to clown dom began with an infatuation for Emmett Kelly, a former clown with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Morgan also had a penchant for stuffed clowns. He had between 15 and 20 of the stuffed variety hidden away in his office in a closet. He would often use them to entertain children who came into his dentist’s office for treatment and were showing signs of fear and anxiety. Once a little girl grasped one and wouldn’t let go. “I didn’t have the heart to ask for it back”, Morgan later said. Archie Morgan was a member of the Dayton Masonic Lodge #512 and the Scottish Rite, as well as a member of the clown unit with the Alhambra Shrine. Sadly, Archie passed away on December 4, 1992, and was laid to rest in the Buttram Cemetery.
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Tommy Mize
April 26, 2023 at 8:08 pmDr. Archie was also a Ham Radio Operator callsign K4DPD. As A charter member of The Rhea County Amateur Radio Club we adopted his callsign as The Clubs callsign and is the identification on the local repeater.